Forgotten Rails: A Photo Essay

As our world moves faster and we are ever more glued to our cellphones between our double espresso coffees and twitter rants something has disappeared, something that has been the backbone of many nations for a century but is snow slowly vanishing. The sound of a train-whistle in the early morning and the rhythmic beat of metals wheels on metal rails is slowly quietening. In a search for my roots and my youth I visited a series of towns that were completely dependant on a railway system that has now become a part of history.

I live in a suburb in a large town. Quiet and unassuming, middle-class, middle of the road. A leafy suburb filled with suburbanites, swimming pools and leaf-blowers making noise at unsuitable hours. But when the wind starts blowing from the North and the clouds start racing across the sky there is another sound that wakes me, the sound of a train hooting, of train-tracks squealing, of a broken tannoy system informing half awake commuters of the newest challenge to their timely arrival at work. It is the forgotten sounds of my youth, the sounds of a working railway system.

Piketberg’s station acts as a depot for the train maintenance teams, with rails lying around between tracks. The station buildings was inhabited by a camera shy security guard that made sure the equipment didnt get stolen. She tells me they rarely come to actually collect anything from the depot.

In the last few years I have realised that trains played a much more important role in my youth than I ever thought. Between the ages of 4 and 13 I lived in a small town in area called the “Sandveld”, the name of the area being quite like its inhabitants, no extra adjectives needed, let’s just call it what it is. My town was between two bigger towns, in fact the exact middle-point between the two towns, it being a geographical answer to a political problem. (When two people cant decide who gets the sheep, you cut the sheep in half, in this instance the town became the bisected sheep). As such the town was important, fishmeal came from the coastal town while citrus, wool and tea arrived from the mountain town, the town itself producing a fair amount of grain. It was a hub with trains loading, unloading and being shunted around, whistles blowing, forklifts moving, people swearing, the place where youngsters roaming about unfettered were told to avoid. More than goods the trains also carried people, going to they city, coming back from city, visiting family somewhere lower down the track, a living breathing system of connections, both mental and physical.

Moorreesburg station used to be a very busy hub. In the middle of the very productive grain area the station used to service the grain silos and production companies on the side of the rail. After the closure the station windows and door windows was bricked up to stop vagrants from squatting in it.

I remember travelling to Cape Town in the train, stopping at each small station to pick up milk from the various smaller farms on the way, the milk cans rattling in the dark as they got rolled onto the station, the rhythmic sounds of the train lulling me to sleep. My young life was spent in the veld around our house, the train a hoot away from home. I laid pennies on the tracks to see what the train would do to them, I fell with my bike on one of the crossings, getting a scar on my knee that I bear to this day, I waved at train drivers hoping that they might just give an extra whistle. It was the type of freewheeling, idyllic small town youth that we only read about these days. The train in the distance a constant reminder of time as you measure suppertime by the late trains arrival. It regulated lives, the night trains dark hoot sounding right through the night as the railways kept on chugging along, the morning train announcing the arrival of overnight passengers coming from the city.

My father’s decision to move towns in the late 80’s was shortly followed by the rebranding of the train transport system as it’s popularity started to decrease. The use of road-freight systems like trucking cheaper and more cost effective, also less prone to governmental red tape and in the next few years the trains started cutting back on it schedule. The first to go was the passenger trains while the goods trains passages became less frequent, the big factories now the only ones still utilising the tracks for their once a day freight trains.

The Graafwater Station buildings have now become a police station. The Graafwater Hotel was a busy thriving hotel in my youth but these days it has become a lot quieter, its peak time coming in the flowering season in August and September when people from the city would stay over for a night.

The stations buildings became housing, police stations or in some cases was demolished to stop squatters. The towns around the stations have stopped growing or just stagnated, it’s need to serve the railways slowly dwindling. I followed the line for a time, from abandoned station to abandoned station. The sadness I felt for the empty tracks, forgotten stations and listless towns salted black dust on my tongue an in my eyes.

My children will never know the carefree life I lead as child in a small town. When I hear the train hooting late at night I grieve for something lost. No-one writes songs about trucks.

Willem grew up in the small town of Eendekuil, a previously bustling station town serving the citrus and the cheese industry. Like a lot of people he used to work in the cheese factory just outside the town and also did some seasonal picking work on the citrus orchards across the Piekeniers Pass. His last full-time job was at the station but when a crate fell off a stand and crushed all the bones in his foot he was left with a permanent limp. Now approaching 65 he still paints and does general DIY for a few people to make a living. He talks about spending a few years in Cape Town but his clear avoidance of the topic and the facial tattoos tell a story of probable incarceration. He misses the old days when you could still ride the train to nearby Malmesbury and come back in the afternoon, the days when the town was still served by the busy train station. Of the once large Eendekuil station there is now only one building left.

Susanna’s family lives in the housing of the old Het Kruis station. About 141 miles from Cape Town the station closed down and when the buildings were sold the Oppenheimers bought it for the workers on their nearby stud farm. She has lived here for 22 years and tells me that the freight trains still come through here twice a day. They have trained the young kids to stay off the tracks and the train drivers usually slow down and hoots when they get close to warn the residents. The highlight of the year for them is the fancy flower trains that come every September to look at the fields of spring flowers. The old trains, sometimes steam engines, always make them all run out of the house to look. She takes most pride in her 25 year old son that works for the government and teaches young people life skills in nearby Lambertsbay.

The Het Kruis (meaning Have Cross) station sign post proudly announces its distance of 141 miles from Cape Town.

The railways might be mostly unused these days but the signage still makes it clear that no bikes are allowed beyond this point.

Buildings that once used to house companies that controlled the movement and storage of grain now stand derelict, the bottom floors boarded up, the signage of now forgotten companies fading and peeling from the walls.

The Graafwater silos still stand and is still a busy hub of the grain producing region. I remember when they were being built and how everybody knew they would guarantee the town validity. Most of the grain is transported to Cape Town via truck these days but the odd train load still departs every now and then.